Clinical value of blood related indexes in the diagnosis of bacterial infectious pneumonia in children

This study sought to explore the value of hematological indexes [i.e., the neutrophil count/lymphocyte count ratio (NLR), the platelet count/lymphocyte count ratio (PLR), and red cell distribution width (RDW) index] in the diagnosis of bacterial infectious pneumonia in children. Fifty cases of mycoplasma infectious pneumonia, 50 cases of bacterial infectious pneumonia and 50 healthy children were enrolled in this study. The differences between the NLR, PLR, and RDW index values in each group were compared using the Mann-Whitney test. The correlation coefficients of the NLR, PLR, and RDW index with the interleukin-6 (IL-6) and procalcitonin (PCT) were analyzed using the Spearman's rank test. The specificity and sensitivity of the NLR, PLR, and RDW index in the diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia in children were evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The NLR value of the children with bacterial infectious pneumonia was significantly higher than that of the children with mycoplasma infectious pneumonia (P